Lowell Murray bids the Senate adieu this fall after 32 years. The dean of the Upper Chamber says Stephen Harper's reforms will make the place worse.

On the Star’s front page of Sept. 13, 1979, Attorney-General Roy McMurtry was promising a citizen review of police complaints, Ted Kennedy was rumoured to be challenging Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination and half a million people were fleeing Hurricane Fred.

On Page 2, the paper reported that Prime Minister Joe Clark was likely to appoint Lowell Murray to the Senate.

He did.

And he’s still here.

Murray’s future is secure — retirement with his wife, even a new dog — but he’s not so certain about the future of the place he has represented for 32 years.

Murray, representing a party that no longer exists, appointed by a prime minister who last brushed his teeth at 24 Sussex more than three decades ago, has had a distinguished career in the Senate.

But had he been appointed today, in Stephen Harper’s proposed brave new Senate world, he would have been forced to find other unemployment by 1988, at the age of 51, instead of leaving on his 75th birthday this September.

That would have been just fine for the dean of the Senate.

He says he probably would have left when Clark was defeated the next year rather than look for work at age 51.

Murray has sat in cabinet, led the Senate for his Progressive Conservatives when he was outnumbered three-to-one and has earned the right to provide some sober second thought on Harper’s Senate reform bill, introduced Tuesday.

Murray thinks it’s a mess.

It might surprise Harper that Murray sides with New Democrats.

He would call a referendum on the future of the body he has represented for 32 years.

“That would lead to a proper debate on the matter,’’ Murray says.

“We ask Canadians, do we need one? And, if so, what kind of a Senate?

“And if a majority in 10 provinces said they don’t need it, then it’s done.’’

Under Harper’s legislation, the provinces and territories would be “strongly encouraged’’ to have voters choose a list of proposed senators to be appointed by the prime minister.

Senators appointed after October 2008 would be limited to one nine-year term.

As New Democrat David Christopherson points out, that is nine years, with a total salary of $1 million, an annual pension of about $35,000, with the senator being prohibited by law from ever being accountable to voters.

That means 36 Harper appointees (nine from Ontario) would be limited to nine-year terms.

They include such high-profile loyalists (critics would call them cheerleaders) as Mike Duffy, Jacques Demers, Pamela Wallin and Carolyn Stewart-Olsen.

But the clock only starts ticking on the nine-year term after the bill gets royal assent, meaning it could be 2021 before any must leave.

By then, Demers will be retired anyway and Duffy and Stewart-Olsen would be months away.

Murray points to other problems with this bill.

Many otherwise productive senators of a certain age would likely do what he might have done, turn down a job that has only a nine-year lifespan, meaning he or she would have to search new work in their 50s.

There would be the obvious tension of elected members working alongside appointed members, and, he says, the Senate becomes the elite body.

An Ontario senator would be elected province-wide and he or she would have a stronger mandate from more voters for a longer period of time than an MP from the province.

Such province-wide votes would also be biased against northern and rural representatives and would favour candidates from large urban centres home to large media.

It could also lead to U.S.-style gridlock.

Murray also says if Harper were serious about reform, he would have gone directly to the Supreme Court of Canada because that’s where it is headed with a challenge from — at least — Quebec.

Murray has helped shape legislation ranging from language rights to banking regulations over the years, but is confident he could have done the same as an elected MP.

“Whether I would still be here is another question,’’ he says.

But he is ready to bid the Upper House adieu.

“God. Ready? I sure am.’’

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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